[3] Turkey,[4] France, the United States, and Spain (in order of total number of successful face transplants performed) are considered the leading countries in the research into the procedure.

On 13 December 2007, the first detailed report of the progress of this transplant after 18 months was released in the New England Journal of Medicine and documents that the patient was happy with the results but also that the journey has been very difficult, especially with respect to her immune system's response.

[citation needed] In March 2008, the treatment of 30-year-old Pascal Coler of France, who has neurofibromatosis, ended after he received what his doctors call the world's first successful almost full face transplant.

[21][22] The operation, which lasted approximately 20 hours, was designed and performed by Laurent Lantieri and his team (Jean-Paul Meningaud, Antonios Paraskevas and Fabio Ingallina).

In April 2006, Guo Shuzhong at the Xijing military hospital in Xi'an, transplanted the cheek, upper lip, and nose of Li Guoxing, who was mauled by an Asiatic black bear while protecting his sheep.

[25] Selahattin Özmen performed a partial face transplant on 17 March 2012 on Hatice Nergis, a twenty-year-old woman at Gazi University's hospital in Ankara.

The patient from Kahramanmaraş had lost her upper jaw six years prior in a firearm accident, including her mouth, lips, palate, teeth and nasal cavity, and was since then unable to eat.

[30] In September 2018, a 49-year-old woman affected by Neurofibromatosis type I received a partial face transplant from a 21-year-old girl at Sant'Andrea Hospital of Sapienza University in Rome.

[32] In May 2018, the first Canadian complete face transplant was performed under the leadership of plastic surgeon Daniel Borsuk at the Hopital Maisonneuve Rosemont, in Montreal, Quebec.

[33][34] The transplant took over 30 hours and replaced the upper and lower jaws, nose, lips and teeth on Maurice Desjardins, a 64-year-old man that shot himself in a hunting accident.

[35][36] On 20 March 2010, a team of 30 Spanish doctors led by plastic surgeon Joan Pere Barret at the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona carried out the world's first full face transplant, on a man injured in a shooting accident.

[37] On 8 July 2010, the French media reported that a full face transplant, including tear ducts and eyelids, was carried out at the Henri-Mondor hospital in Créteil.

[38] In March 2011, a surgical team, led by Bohdan Pomahač at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, performed a full face transplant on Dallas Wiens, who was badly disfigured in a power line accident that left him blind and without lips, nose or eyebrows.

[40] On 15 May 2013, at the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Institute of Oncology branch in Gliwice, Poland, an entire face was transplanted onto a male patient, Grzegorz (aged 33) after he lost the front of his head in a machine accident at work.

Shortly after the donor's death, the decision to perform the surgery was made and his body was transported hundreds of kilometers to Gliwice once his relatives gave their consent.

[42][43] On 21 January 2012, Turkish surgeon Ömer Özkan and his team successfully performed a full face transplant at Akdeniz University's hospital in Antalya.

[45] Almost one month later on 24 February 2012, a surgical team led by Serdar Nasır conducted the country's second successful full face transplant at Hacettepe University's hospital in Ankara on 25-year-old Cengiz Gül.

The donor was Andrzej Kucza, a 42-year-old Polish tourist who was declared brain dead following a heart attack on 14 July while swimming in Turkey's sea resort Muğla.

Salih Üstün (54) received the scalp, eyelids, jaw and maxilla, nose and the half tongue of 31-year-old Muhittin Turan, who was declared brain dead after a motorcycle accident that took place two days before.

[50] In October 2006, surgeon Peter Butler at London's Royal Free Hospital in the UK was given permission by the NHS ethics board to carry out face transplants.

In December 2008, a team at the Cleveland Clinic, led by Maria Siemionow and including a group of supporting doctors and six plastic surgeons (Steven Bernard, Dr Mark Hendrickson, Robert Lohman, Dan Alam and Francis Papay) performed the first face transplant in the US on a woman named Connie Culp.

She had been disfigured to the point where she could not eat or breathe on her own as a result of a traumatic injury several years ago, which had left her without a nose, right eye and upper jaw.

During a 17-hour operation, a surgical team led by Bohdan Pomahač, replaced the nose, upper lip, cheeks, and roof of the mouth – along with corresponding muscles, bones and nerves – of James Maki, age 59.

The patient had had complex trauma that masked the development of a rare type of autoimmune disease (granulomatosis with polyangiitis and pyoderma gengrenosum) affecting the face.

[63][64][65][66] In August 2015, a face transplant was completed at the NYU Langone Medical Center under the leadership of the chair of plastic surgery Eduardo D. Rodriguez and his team.

[67] In June 2016, a multidisciplinary team of surgeons, physicians and other health professionals completed a near-total face transplant at Mayo Clinic's Rochester campus.

[79][80] The procedure lasted approximately 23 hours, and involved the entire facial soft tissue (extending from the anterior hairline to the neck, including the eyelids, nose, lips, and ears, along with strategic skeletal components), as well as both hands at the distal forearm level.

With issues of tissue type, age, sex, and skin color taken into consideration, the patient's face is removed and replaced (sometimes including the underlying fat, nerves, blood vessels, bones, and/or musculature).

Citing the comments of various plastic surgeons and medical professionals from France and Mexico, anthropologist Samuel Taylor-Alexander suggests that the operation has been infused with nationalist import, which is ultimately influencing the decision-making and ethical judgements of the involved parties.

[85] As of October 2019, the AboutFace Project Archived 1 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine, funded by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship awarded to Dr Fay Bound Alberti, is exploring these debates as part of its wider research into the emotional and cultural history of face transplants.